Delta not on list for provincial child care funding

The B.C. government will be spending $33 million to create more than 3,800 child care spaces across the province within two years, but Delta won’t be seeing any of them.

On Dec. 4, the province announced the investment to fund 103 projects in 52 communities, focusing on infant and toddler spaces, spaces on school grounds or in community hubs, inclusive spaces in development centres, Indigenous child care spaces and employer-based spaces.

“We are speeding up the creation of new child-care spaces to address years of pent-up demand for child care,” Minister of State for Child Care Katrina Chen said in the release.

Currently, Delta has around 20 per cent of the ministry-funded child care facilities south of the river, and the third highest ratio of facilities to children.

That may change with the new government funding, which will see an additional 295 child care spaces in Surrey, 20 spaces in Langley, 125 spaces in Abbotsford, 15 spaces in Chilliwack, 12 spaces in Harrison Hot Spring and 37 spaces in Hope.